Praise, concern follows move by feds to pass control of wolves to Wyoming

A male wolf from the Canyon Pack stands in shallow water in Yellowstone National Park. (Mike Wheeler - click to enlarge)

By Ruffin Prevost

CODY, WYO. — Over objections from some environmental groups and with the praise of many sportsmen and ranchers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday announced the removal of wolves in Wyoming from the endangered species list.

The move returns management control over gray wolves in the state to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department after a series of long-running disagreements and legal challenges over the state’s dual approach to treating wolves as regulated trophy game in the greater Yellowstone area and as a predator with no protections across most of the state.

Long a contentious issue in the northern Rockies—especially in Wyoming communities close to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks—public battles over the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone in 1995 are unlikely to end with the agency’s decision Friday. The animals have since multiplied and spread to communities across the region that lie far outside the park’s boundaries.

Some wildlife and parks advocates said Friday that they feared Wyoming’s wolf management plan could allow wolf hunting in Grand Teton National Park or the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. The Parkway is a 37-square-mile National Park Service unit that connects Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks.

“It is truly a shame that after spending millions of taxpayer dollars to recover the gray wolf in this region that the federal government would choose to permit wolf hunting within our national parks,” said Sharon Mader, Grand Teton program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, in a statement released Friday.

“Under the administration’s delisting rule, even those wolves seeking sanctuary in national park lands—America’s most sacred lands—could be hunted,” Mader said.

But that won’t happen in the short term, according to a statement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Existing federal law prohibits wolf hunting in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, according to the agency, although it could take place in later years in the JDR Parkway.

A statement released Friday by USFWS said that “no wolf hunting will occur in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway, the National Elk Refuge and the Wind River Reservation in 2012, although hunting could occur in these three areas in future years.”

Exceeding recovery goals

State and federal wildlife managers have long maintained that wolves have met or exceeded recovery goals in their prime habitat areas around Yellowstone. Wyoming officials want to allow tightly managed hunting of wolves to help control problems like livestock predation or other conflicts in more heavily populated areas.

Some wolf advocates say populations are vulnerable to a number of risks ranging from disease to habitat loss and fragmentation, the animals should not yet be hunted, and that their numbers should be maintained at higher levels than state and federal targets require.

Wolves will be hunted only by permit and in limited numbers in Wyoming’s northwestern corner, but have no protections in the rest of the state, an area considered by biologists to be poor wolf habitat and well outside their core recovery area. Most recent estimates show that about 10 percent of Wyoming’s wolves live in areas where they would be classified as predators.

“Our primary goal, and that of the states, is to ensure that gray wolf populations in the Northern Rocky Mountains remain healthy, giving future generations of Americans the chance to hear its howl echo across the area,” said USFWS Director Dan Ashe. “No one, least of all Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, wants to see wolves back on the endangered species list. But that’s what will happen if recovery targets are not sustained.”

The federal agency will monitor wolf populations for at least five years to make sure their numbers continue to meet agreed-upon targets.

The most recent official minimum population estimate shows more than 1,774 adult wolves and more than 109 breeding pairs of gray wolves across the northern Rockies. Wolves have exceeded recovery goals for 10 consecutive years.

Wyoming will maintain at least 150 wolves and 15 breeding pairs within state boundaries, the same management objectives adopted by Montana and Idaho.

Long-term expectations

Federal wildlife officials expect to see a long-term average of approximately 300 wolves in the greater Yellowstone region and approximately 1,000 wolves in the 400-mile northern Rockies region.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said the return of wolf management to the state “represents a significant achievement for the State of Wyoming” reached through cooperation with federal colleagues and with the “support of the state Legislature, the Congressional delegation, ranchers, outfitters and guides, and sportsmen.”

“I am proud of Wyoming’s wolf management plan,” Mead said in a statement released Friday.

Mead said he was confident the plan would maintain a sustainable wolf population and that the animal would not again end up on the endangered species list.

Mike Clark, executive director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, called the decision “flawed” in a statement and fundraising appeal sent to members Friday.

“Clearly, Wyoming’s wolf management plan is not based on sound science or wildlife management principles, with over 80 percent of the state having a shoot-on-sight policy,” Clark said.

He said the GYC, based in Bozeman, Mont., will work to “ensure that wolves living in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks aren’t harmed by state management and that wolves are not hunted in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway.”

Friday’s decision takes effect Sept. 30. Starting in October, Wyoming will allow up to 52 wolves to be hunted in the trophy game area in the northwestern corner of the state. Wolf hunting will not be allowed in Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

“We are taking a conservative approach to wolf hunting seasons during this time of transition from federal to state management,” said Brian Nesvik, wildlife chief for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, in a statement released Friday.

“We need time to assume the important responsibilities of wolf population monitoring, sport harvest management, and meeting Wyoming’s commitments to wolf conservation in our state,” Nesvik said.

Ruffin Prevost is founding editor of Yellowstone Gate, an independent, online news service about Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks and their gateway communities. He lives in Cody, Wyo., where he also works as the Wyoming reporter for Reuters news service. He worked from 2005-10 as the Wyoming reporter for the Billings Gazette and has also been managing editor of WyoFile.

More About

With winter still firmly entrenched across Yellowstone country, some tourism industry leaders are already planning a few special events for the summer. That's the summer of 2016.
The National Park Service celebrates its centennial in 2016, and is planning special events and observations across the country, including at Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Gateway towns are gearing up as well, looking to capitalize on what is likely to be an increased focus on national parks during the centennial year.

My favorite place to visit in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem is the Laurance S. Rockefeller (LSR) Preserve, a refuge of slightly more than 1,000 acres within Grand Teton National Park, located on the southern end of Phelps Lake. The area belonged to the Rockefeller family and was called the JY Ranch, and was donated to the National Park Service in 2001.

Residents around Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks often fall into a rut of taking for granted the rare and amazing natural resources in their own backyards. So it's no surprise when a grizzly bear, gray wolf or bull moose serves as a reminder of how special it is to live at the doorstep of an iconic national park.
But clouds?
Apparently, clouds were a major attraction Thursday in Grand Teton National Park, as an unusual cloud formation put on a dazzling show that sent visitors and veteran National Park Service employees scrambling for cameras and staring skyward.

Two Teton County photographers filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C. Monday seeking to stop the annual elk hunt in Grand Teton National Park.
Tim Mayo and Kent Nelson, operating as Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, target the “elk reduction program,” in which hunters killed 202 elk last year. The hunt also resulted in the shooting of a grizzly bear, a federally protected species, in 2012.
The suit goes beyond hunting alone, challenging supplemental winter elk feeding on the nearby National Elk Refuge. The hunt violates a slew of federal laws, the suit claims, including the Grand Teton Act, the National Park Organic Act, the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act.

Hunting gray wolves in Wyoming as trophy game or shooting them as predators has been banned under a ruling Tuesday by a federal judge that places the animals back under control of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington D.C. struck down a 2012 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Wyoming and place their management under control of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

A high-tech method for detecting disease in domestic cattle is helping researchers in Yellowstone National Park learn more about how sarcoptic mange effects gray wolf survival and behavior during the park's long, cold winters.
For Paul Cross, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, a moment of insight came when he learned how thermal imaging was used in the cattle industry to detect cows infected with foot-and-mouth disease.
The heat-sensitive cameras can pick up on the heat caused by related inflammation in a cow's hoof within a day or two of contracting the disease.
Heat-sensing videocameras could help show the metabolic costs of mange in specific wolves, Ross realized.

2 thoughts on “Praise, concern follows move by feds to pass control of wolves to Wyoming”

I wish it weren’t true, but management (hunting wolves) is part of the original agreement that hinged the reintroduction. For the sake of good relations and future cooperation, everybody has to honor the agreement.

We Recommend

The Yellowstone Park Foundation is recruiting businesses across the greater Yellowstone area for a new program designed to help them give back to Yellowstone, and receive benefits in return. "Many area businesses have asked YPF how they can give back to Yellowstone, because the Park gives us all so much," said YPF President Karen Bates Kress.

Yellowstone Gate

In Case You Missed It

The oldest hotel in the world's first national park had a distinct aroma of fresh paint as summer guests began arriving this week. But the major renovations being wrapped up at Yellowstone Lake Hotel go far beyond new paint, as workers are completing a 2-year, $28.5 million makeover that has focused on restoring the iconic property to its historic elegance.

For the past two months, newly arrived Grand Teton National Park Superintendent David Vela has been meeting with staff, elected officials and community members to learn about a host of challenges he'll likely be dealing with in the coming months. That includes a range of natural resource issues like grizzly bear management, elk hunting in the park and river paddling.